Graffiti works win a wider audience

The event was held during Spring Festival, so Chen wanted his work to express "best wishes" by blending traditional Chinese culture with a modern art form.

In Hong Kong, the influential street art festival HKWalls is staged every year in March and attracts many local and international artists to create graffiti on street walls. There are also pop-up exhibitions and workshops.

In Shanghai, Yu Yanyan, a graffiti artist and co-founder of the CAPITALL-Shanghai Graffiti Shop, set up an Instagram account in 2017, on which she exhibits interesting street art works by Chinese artists.

In January, her shop co-hosted an international graffiti sketch exhibition, presenting more than 300 works from 77 artists from around the world.

Yu said more graffiti events and festivals are being held in China. "I have a friend who collects posters of graffiti events in China. Last year, he collected more than 200," she said.